Your Legacy

A rainy day in Los Angeles offers a perfect opportunity to consider our legacy — yours and mine.

I’m not talking about the money we might leave to those we love. I am talking about the actions we perform each day to help others. Those acts are our most lasting and important gift to the world.

Years ago a young man asked me for advice. He was planning to start a business in commercial property management — similar to mine, and I freely gave him my time along with my guidance.  Then he asked me to share the templates for all of my contracts. I considered the possibility that he might ultimately become a competitor, but what the heck — I believed, and still do, that we have an obligation to help others to the extent we reasonably can. I gave him a copy of each of our forms. He thanked me. I never saw him again.

Still, I’m glad I helped. You’ve probably read the articles that establish how helping others brings us happiness. I agree.  It brings me great joy to help others.

I also hope that when I help someone, they will pay it forward by helping someone else, although that would be a bonus.  It’s not part of the original deal.

We all help our children, emotionally and financially from the moment they are born. We even continue to help them long after they begin to know more than we do — at about age thirteen. That’s fine with me. Better they should learn from their own mistakes while they are still at home in a somewhat protected environment. But even after they have fledged from the protective nests of their childhood homes – we continue helping them. And they in turn, begin to help us along with helping their own children, and others.

And so it goes. A cycle of helping others is the best legacy any of us can leave. As soon as I finish writing this blog, I’m going to take a moment to listen to the rain, and silently remember, and thank, all of those who helped me along my way. There have been, and still are, many.

My thanks to you for reading (and sometimes commenting) on my blog. I appreciate you.

Alan